GOD I loved Burma Chronicles so much. Better than Shenzhen, oh yes. I may be remembering this wrong, buuuut I think Shenzhen was written before Pyongyang, but was translated into English after (after Pyongyang became a critical hit)? And Burma was last. That order makes sense to me with Character!Delisle and Artist!Delisle's progression from whiny and obnoxious ex-pat racist in Shenzhen to someone who's at least trying in Burma.
Anyway, I loved Burma Chronicles SO MUCH, I think I mentioned. The laid-back feel; the lives of his neighbors and their delight in his baby son; the betel-chewing, the house-hunting, the babysitters, the other ex-pats. And the politics never overwhelming but always clear: the health workers banned from helping the ethnic group in the mountains, ever-present Aung San Suu Kyi, the e-mail filters, the grandmother finally willing to speak freely because she's dying. It chilled me to read about his cartooning student who disappears after Delisle does a casual international interview.
And it was fascinating and heartbreaking to see the community of cautious and passionate Burmese cartoonists that opened to Delisle (something that didn't seem to occur to him would exist in Shenzhen or Pyongyang). The tiny selection of Burmese comic art he reprinted was beautiful. The little scribble kicking itself! The women's magazine illustration that was totally josei! I wish that he'd printed more, and that he could give the artists credit, and that there were a whole library of comics available from them here. I want Burmese manga! It hurts to think about some Asian comics guidebook I read, that talked about Indian Hindu comics and Japanese manga and Korean manhwa and manhua from China and Taiwan, and all these countries/artists' influences on each other; and then it got to Cambodia and was basically like "the modern comics scene here is limited because the artists who would've grown up to become influential Cambodian mangaka got slaughtered instead."
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-05-30 08:15 pm (UTC)Anyway, I loved Burma Chronicles SO MUCH, I think I mentioned. The laid-back feel; the lives of his neighbors and their delight in his baby son; the betel-chewing, the house-hunting, the babysitters, the other ex-pats. And the politics never overwhelming but always clear: the health workers banned from helping the ethnic group in the mountains, ever-present Aung San Suu Kyi, the e-mail filters, the grandmother finally willing to speak freely because she's dying. It chilled me to read about his cartooning student who disappears after Delisle does a casual international interview.
And it was fascinating and heartbreaking to see the community of cautious and passionate Burmese cartoonists that opened to Delisle (something that didn't seem to occur to him would exist in Shenzhen or Pyongyang). The tiny selection of Burmese comic art he reprinted was beautiful. The little scribble kicking itself! The women's magazine illustration that was totally josei! I wish that he'd printed more, and that he could give the artists credit, and that there were a whole library of comics available from them here. I want Burmese manga! It hurts to think about some Asian comics guidebook I read, that talked about Indian Hindu comics and Japanese manga and Korean manhwa and manhua from China and Taiwan, and all these countries/artists' influences on each other; and then it got to Cambodia and was basically like "the modern comics scene here is limited because the artists who would've grown up to become influential Cambodian mangaka got slaughtered instead."